[Wired] Man Successfully Flies With Custom-Built Bird Wings - Page 5

I'm not sold either way on it's authenticity.

This is closer to a hang glider than a wing suit. There is less play/balloning of the fabric, except at the tips, because it's taught around a rigid frame. A wing suit looks the way it does because it's geometry is variable, controlled by the position of the by the person wearing it. A wing suit actually doesn't generate all that much lift and had an utterly terrible glide coefficient compared to a kite/hang-glider.

It looks to me that his legs and the fabric between them are supposed to be a control surface. Also, a square meter of surface area, give or take, would not need very high air speed to hold up someone's legs.

No.

Humming birds are built to hover, but they aren't really capable of dynamic soaring, like an albatross or similar birds would be.

They aren't supposed to, hence the need for the headwind.

Again, headwind.

Air speed determines lift, not ground speed.
Edited by Blameless - 3/21/12 at 3:44pm

Great April Fool's joke.

I have a feeling that half the people here don't think hang gliding is possible either.

Yes, the headwind is all fine and dandy, but remember, once his feet leave the ground, the headwind becomes moot. The flapping of the wings must be able to maintain the relative-to-the-wind lift and forward motion required.

The forward motion I believe possible with that small of motions. Birds in cruise flight make small motions like that. However, watch birds take-off, the motion is much more exaggerated, even when flying into the wind.

Hang gliding is a completely different process and has much different goals than what is shown here.

To me it looks like the shadows are not synced with all the wing movements.

@ Blameless



ALL birds wings generate lift the same way. They don't just flap up and down.
The humming bird was a example for the hi-speed footage.

Alot of angles/pitch are involved

No it doesn't.

No it doesn't.

There is another source of power...gravity. The wings on this glider are not flapping, yet it takes off because of a headwind, gains altitude, then moves forward through that headwind.

As for birds, this contraption in the article is not a bird, but you are wrong anyway. Soaring birds can take off into a headwind without flapping at all.

No, it's not.

You are wrong.

Humming birds generate lift through vortices, and are more like insects in how they fly than dynamic soarers like albatross, which often don't have to flap at all. The latter generate most of there lift simply by virtue of air foils shape of the wing.
Edited by Blameless - 3/21/12 at 4:20pm

I didn't get that impression at all. I guess I could be wrong since most people believe all sorts of crazy crap (like flying spaghetti monsters), but nobody in this thread seemed to be disputing the existence of something as well documented as hang-gliding. Heck, most of us probably at least know someone who's done so (my cousin in my case) and there's a ton of video of any and all sorts of examples of people hang-gliding. I've never gone hang-gliding myself or seen them in real life, but I don't doubt people who have done so exist.

No, the people disputing something in this thread just seem to be disputing the validity of a poorly made (but carefully edited) video showing someone doing something nobody else has ever done with no complementary proof, no other video examples, no independent witnesses.

The more I think about it the more I'm inclined to call hoax as well. Why isn't there any other video? You know... from a higher quality camera showing the whole thing from start to finish? Where are the press? Why is the headcam shot ONLY showing the last little bit looking directly at the ground and not looking around at all?

I always wonder what motivation people have to do this sort of thing... is there some value to trying to trick people? Buncha lying attention whores to my eyes.

Flying Squirrel suits! I want one! I think the video looks genuine.. looks like you gotta work for it,though ::

Yes it is. Headwind is absolutely moot when it comes to climbing, and once you leave the ground in general.

Headwind is just wind in relation to the ground speed and direction. Once in the air, all that matters is airspeed over the airfoil to generate lift. There is no such thing as a headwind in regards to an airfoil, just the speed of airflow over it. You must have a device or motion capable of maintaining your airspeed and/or vertical thrust in order to climb.

Gliding is falling with style, not climbing, unless you are using thermals, which is a "device" providing upward thrust. Even while riding that thermal, you are actually still falling through the air in relation to the relative wind, which is why you are still able to maintain your airspeed. The soaring birds are able to take off without wind, but then wind resistance forces them to either flap or start flying the other direction. Either way, at some point they need to flap to maintain their altitude and/or airspeed.

By the way, the video you showed me was a glider riding ridge lift. Using the wind going up and over a hill, you can actually get a LOT of airspeed. There are some videos of R/C gliders that reach over 300mph just riding the downdraft on the backside of a hill and roar up the protected side. It's really impressive.

Now, if you are trying to imply that there was a thermal effect right there, you'd have to explain why you think this is happening. Based on what I can see, it is a very flat area from take-off to landing, and I don't think that body of water would be cold enough to create an updraft over the land.

EDIT:
If you were to say that you think his momentum from running was enough for him to climb that high, and the motion of the wing was able to counter the wind resistance, that I could buy. However, if you watch the video again, you'll notice that it seems way too steep for that to be the case. Not just the climb angle, but the wing's angle as well.
Edited by SectorNine50 - 3/21/12 at 4:42pm